Current Long Term Evolution (LTE)-based networks include a variety of devices, such as enhanced Node Bs (eNBs), mobility management entities (MMEs), packet gateways (PGWs), and serving gateways (SGWs). Current Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and LTE standards require the PGW to function or serve as an anchoring point for any user equipment (UE). That is, all traffic between the UEs and the Internet necessarily travels through the anchor PGW. However, the anchoring function of the PGW is static and cannot be combined with the functionality of the SGWs, the MMEs, and/or the eNBs. Furthermore, anchoring UEs (e.g., anchoring bearer paths associated with UEs) at a particular PGW could increase transport cost and resource utilization at the particular PGW, depending on the relative location of the UE to the PGW and the far endpoint. This causes network transport and PGW resources to be inefficient at handling large traffic loads when the network grows to include a large number of eNBs or larger bandwidth per user.